Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Alban S.K. Bagbin and Majority leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu have smoked the peace pipe after the terse exchanges last week over the ‘Parliament is broke statement.’
The exchange, according to the Majority, is due to miscommunication and stressed he indeed made comments on the matter about what he really knew but stressed he did not deliberately go out to contradict the Speaker during the radio programme in Kumasi.
The Majority leader, on Tuesday, 31st May, 2022, set the record straight on the floor of Parliament and indicated last Wednesday 25th May, 2022 he engaged the Finance Ministry for the release of GH¢25 million, which was confirmed on Thursday morning before he left for Kumasi.
According to him, while in Kumasi he granted some radio interviews in respect of the Speaker’s comments during which he indicated the releases had been made to Parliament.
He said,j “I also indicated the need to have some meetings with the Finance Minister, the Controller and Account General so that we have regular releases to forestall these matters.”
“These things have been with Parliament over the years and we will need to bring it to a closure, if to arrange that monthly we should have releases; that was the statement I made.”
“Apparently some communication was made to the Speaker that in public space I contracted him so on and the Speaker came to the House and made some statements I consider unfortunate. However, it was borne out of a communication miss up; I will not go out there to contract the Speaker,” he stated.
Speaker Alban Bagbin in response noted the challenges Parliament is facing in connection with the delay in the budgetary releases to Parliament to enable the House to transact business.
He disclosed that for the first quarter Parliament was given GH¢7 million out of an expected GH¢54 million for the House to implement its programmes.
According to him, the GH¢25 million that was released on Friday which became the subject of the debate was part of arrears of GH¢84 million for last year.
He said, “We are giving you this information so that leadership and speakership are not blamed for not responding positively to the requests of members and Committees to transact their business, it is because ‘there is not there.”
“And so we find ourselves in this situation but truly, as the Majority Leader said, GH¢25 million was released on Thursday as part of the arrears of 2021.”
“And so it definitely went to our creditors and I can tell you that we’re losing face because anytime we request for support again the creditors didn’t want to respond because we owe them for far too long. That is the situation we have,” he added.